The White Rose
by hubbie22
Summary: Never underestimate a girl who has bore the burden of scandal on her back, for you shall find she is a most formidable opponent. "I AM A DAUGHTER OF A KING, I BOW TO NO ONE."


I am Elizabeth of York and Henry VII **TRASH.** These two are my historical OTP, like they go above and beyond anything I could ever want in a royal marriage. Of course, with the White Princess, I am just disgusted by the treatment of their love story. Because their marriage was indeed a _love story,_ so I thought these two were in need of a story that kept the integrity of their story intact without any INCEST I _still_ cannot believe people believe that. Also, contrary to popular belief Elizabeth of York was a redhead, I know **crazy.** Anyway, rant over. Enjoy my new story and do not worry I have not forgotten about the others.

 **CAST:**

 **ELIZABETH OF YORK**

 _ **SOPHIE TURNER**_

 _SAY GOODNIGHT TO THE LIFE AND THE WORLD YOU KNEW._

 **HENRY VII**

 **JACOB COLLINS-LEVY**

 _I KNOW ALL ABOUT WAITING. I WAIT NO LONGER._

 **MARGRET BEAUFORT**

 **Michelle Fairley**

 _GOD PUT MY HENRY ON THE THRONE._

 **ELIZABETH WOODVILLE**

 **Lena Headey**

 _YOU SHALL MARRY HENRY TUDOR AND BE QUEEN OF ENGLAND AS I ONCE WAS._

 **PLAYLIST:**

1\. _So Cold;_ **Ben Cocks.**

 _"_ I should have known better, now it hurts much more _."_

2\. _Winter In My Heart;_ **Vast.**

"I need a summer but it is Winter in my heart."

3\. _Broken Crown;_ **Mumford & Sons.**

 _"Hold my hand, consign me not to darkness."_

4 _. How Am I Supposed Die;_ _ **Civil Twilight.**_

"You were made to turn your back, what am I to say to that?"

5\. _The Night We Met;_ **Lord Huron.**

"And your eyes were filled with tears when you had not touched me yet. Oh, take me back to the night we met."

6\. _All I Want;_ **Kodalike.**

"So you brought out the best in me, a part of me I have never seen. You took my soul and wiped it clean."

7\. _Saturn;_ **Sleeping At Last.**

"I couldn't help but ask for you to say it all again. I would give anything to hear you say how the universe was made to be seen by my eyes."

8\. _Only You;_ **Selena Gomez** _ **.**_

"Wonder if you'll ever understand, it's just the touch of your hand behind a closed door."

9\. _Tin Man;_ **Miranda Lambert.**

"You give me your armor and you can have my heart."

10\. _Comatose;_ **Mikkey Ekko.**

"Like an open door to an empty door to an empty room, there is still a part of me needing a part of you."

11\. _Heavy;_ **Lincoln Park.**

"I know I'm not the center the universe but you keep spinning around me just the same."

12\. _Love;_ **Lana Del Ray.**

"You are part of the past, but now you are the future."

13\. _Love Will Remember;_ **Selena Gomez.**

"Now is all we got and time can't be bought. Love will remember you and love will remember me. Forever will forever be ours."

14\. _Terrible Things;_ **Mayday Parade.**

"She said please, don't be sad now, I really believe, you were the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Slow, I fell on the ground to my knees. Don't fall in love there is just to much to lose. Life can do terrible things."

15\. _The End;_ **Silverstein ft. Lights.**

"The first time we met your face became etched in my mind. You were the sun. I was the one who worshiped you."

Okay guys so I know, I know I said I was writing a love story which **I am.** But, I do believe that this marriage probably did start with some animosity toward each party. Maybe not this much but I took some liberties cause you know, I can 😂 Also, I imagine that EoY must feel looked over and almost like a pawn for the gain of her family and Henry like he is marrying the woman whose father exiled him. So, yeah. There has to be some feelings there. Anyways enjoy 😊

 **"I am not his war prize. Nor am I my families pawn."**

Lizzie paced back and forth the news of her Uncle Richard's demise at Bosworth sending her into a frenzy of emotions, at last she was free from the rumors that he intended to marry her. _Lies, all of it._ Her Uncle was many things but he would never damn his soul over the carnal sin of incest. _She would never be attracted to such a man._ All that occupied her mind was her dear Aunt Anne, who despite Elizabeth's mother's treatment of Anne during her time as Queen showed Elizabeth nothing but admiration and love. _"You remind me of Izzie." She would say when she was in the throws of her fever. She would even call Lizzie, Izzie. She would never lay with man whose wife died in her arms, whose heart was broken because everything she had loved was lost._

Yet, Lizzie also wondered if _this was the vengeance God had brought on the man who slain a boy King._

And now the last York King had fallen, and Tudor reigned.

 _Her betrothed._ Henry Tudor who had grown up in Brittany and touched English soil for the second time in his life to fight for the English crown. A crown _that should be hers._

Now he was King of England and she was still Lady Elizabeth of York. _The irony of it all._

A man who based his claim on his marriage to her, _the heir to Edward IV,_ yet he had not sought her out after he stripped the last York son of his crown. A man who opted to be crowned in Westminister Abbey _alone,_ instead of being crowned alongside a York Queen. _So much for joining the warring houses of York and Lancaster._

She waited for the day when he realized that his throne would not be safe without her beside him. _She kept waiting._ Finally, her patience was rewarded when she was summoned back to the palace she once called home, now filled with ghosts of those once happiest of days.

She knelt in the chapel where prayed for her little brother, Edward's soul every day. She prayed that he would find peace. _He deserves peace with father and Mary._

She makes her way from the Chapel to the courtyard when she hears her name being called, "Lady Elizabeth?" The voice belonged to no woman, but a man.

She turns from her spot to see My Lady the King's mother watching from a mounted position on her horse, as she looks to the King she knows that this greeting must have been his mother's idea. For his face tell her all she needs to know, _he believes the rumors._

She turns to face the man she had heard so much about, the man she would someday call husband and father of her children. "Your grace." She curtsies low, something she was not accustomed too.

His deep brown eyes pierced her river blue eyes, "I hope your journey was not too taxing."

"Not at all, the countryside is most beautiful this year and the people always do love to see a royal coach. Thier faces are always a light with happiness " She smiles, trying with all her might to appear like the princess she was born to be. _Princess never let the world see their unhappiness, they hide it with a smile._

Yet he seems to find her words haughty and untactful. "How nice to see the Yorks are still so admired." His words drip with bitterness.

Elizabeth's hands are up now as she tries to explain, "Oh no, please your grace, do not take that as a sign of York outrage. I only meant to appease you with the happiness of your people." She says putting the emphasizes on the word your.

He does not say anything but only looks at her, with his dark eyes as if he is summing her up. And he may like what he sees, but his distaste comes from the words she speaks.

"Are your apartments to your liking?"

"Indeed they are most cozy." She says knowing she has been placed in an apartment well beneath her rank, for the King's Lady Mother occupied the Queen's apartments. Elizabeth cannot help but wonder what they think of the secret passageway her father installed to get to her mother's rooms unnoticed. Perhaps, they use it to plot Elizabeth's imprisonment for being born a York.

"How do you fair, my lady?"

"Splendid, your grace. And yourself?" She keeps her river blue ice on his own eyes, her mother once said she could disarm a man by only looking at him. Henry Tudor was not that kind of man.

"Well, I suppose." He does not even seem to be fazed by her penetrating gaze.

She steps closer to him, "Well then you must fix ails you, for when asked a King should never respond with anything less than exuberance and gayness at the splendid situation he now finds himself in." She smirks as she realizes he is ever so slightly taken off guard by the bite of her words.

But he does not stay that way for long, "Your advice is dually noted."

She bows her head to him and side steps him to leave but he catches her wrist sending her and her auburn hair spinning around to face him. "Prepare yourself for the wedding in a fortnight, anything you need my Lady Mother shall see to personally. As for your dress my Lady moth-"

She stops him, "I will make preparations for my own dress, I was born a princess, not an exiled pauper." Her iciness comes out like the biting cold of the winters she spent held up in sanctuary.

But if she is ice, then he is fire "I suppose even a bastard princess, whose title will only be restored due to the fact that I, the King have intervened should be able to oversee such a minor detail."

"Yes, your grace thank you for giving back my titles that I was born with, unlike others who waded through blood to achieve theirs."

"Soon you shall leave your York name behind, and all that it encompasses." He smirks as he has now thoroughly disarmed her, he leaves her in her own stupor.

This was the price she would pay to sit on the throne that belonged to her, _her identity as a glittering adored daughter of York._

She goes to bed wearing a shade of bitter resentment on her face, and her pillow soaked with tears. She was to marry a man who would only ever think of her as an enemy. _Princess seldom get a chance at happiness, never do Queens._

In her dreams, she would find herself back in Westminster Palace fresh snow adorned the grounds as the palace was decorated to its golden glory under her father's reign. No longer was the darkness of her Uncle Richard surrounding the court, of the stench of death close. Nor was the stiffness of the Tudors intact. It was all the _golden Sun of York, with the white rose filled every crevice tying together a reign immortalized in white and gold._

Then she caught a mere glimpse of red-gold tresses, _so much like her own_ , she knew that only her dear departed sister possessed. She would follow Mary's laughter would to the doors of her father's chambers. Where she would find her father waiting for her, _he still was golden._ Not even death could take away the grandness a son of York possessed.

"My darling, Lizzie." He would come to her from behind his desk, which was how she remembered when he was alive, _organized to a fault as it was covered with papers._

"Papa." The word catches in her throat.

He hugs her tightly before he picks her up to spin her around, causing a giggle to emit from her lips. He puts her back down and pecks her forehead, "Little Lizzie, all grown up. I have missed so much, I have caused much harm to those who have given me the greatest joy in my life."

She takes his hands in hers, "No father, no, never think that. We endure like you did before us, we survive."

"Not everyone." His walks to the grand window, overlooking the gardens. She follows him to see a copper headed boy playing with a wooden sword, the boy looks up giving them his widest smile before returning to his sword.

"Uncles killing nephews all in the name of England, of the crown." She says with disbelief.

Her father comes to face his eyes filled with glimmering hope, "Then you know why I am here, Lizzie. You shall marry Henry Tudor and take back what was stolen from your brothers."

"You are not here, you are dead." She bites back.

He smiles, "Indeed, but I am alive in here." He says as he points to her heart, _a heart far too big for this world is easily broken her grandmother used to say._

"I know my duty, I was groomed all my life to sit on a throne."

He agrees, "Yes, pledged to the dauphine from the cradle." He then turns to her lifting up her chin to face his bright green eyes, _like the emeralds in St. Edward's crown,_ "But this is not France, this is England. This is your home, your siblings home, your right by birth Elizabeth."

"Then why am I not Queen, alone?" _If only I had been born a boy, she thought bitterly._

"The world will be ready for a formidable flame-haired Queen, with her mother's wit and grace and the York charm, someday, but today is not that day" He brushes her flamed lock behind her ear, "Today, you must be the peace."

Since my run in with Henry, I had sought to busy myself with the making of my wedding dress. I threw myself into every detail, no matter how minor. It reminded how much I missed my Lady mother, how I missed the days when the Royal dressmakers would come to my sisters I's chambers to create new gowns. This, in turn, made me think of those glorious days when we would model our new dresses for our father, who would clap and tell us how we shine like golden English roses. _Like the sun itself, striking and glimmering._

How I missed her, my mother, whose advice came in the form of letters since she was not invited to court yet, were my greatest source of comfort. She wrote to me every day telling me of the adventures of young Catherine and Bridget, how they and Cecily missed me. But the last letter I received did not mention them, no it remind me of who I am, _always remember who you are and the great name you bear, for they can not take that from you try as they might. Remember you are the grandest rose in the royal garden._

I looked down at the gold silk that was to be used to make my gown, as I brushed the golden silk I am reminded of my run-in with My Lady the King's Mother in the royal closet.

" _Elizabeth, my dear girl."_

 _I turn to see the snow white face of the woman who I am soon to call mother. "My Lady the King's Mother." I curtsey to the woman who held my mother's train at her coronation, thanking the Lord that her cumbersome title does not falter on my lips._

 _She smiles slightly, "I have arranged everything for the wedding, but my son, the King, tells me you would see to your own dress?"_

 _It does not go unnoticed by me of how she flaunts her son's newfound title as if it is a flag to wave around for the whole of England to see and be mesmerized by. A title which my dear brother, Richard, wherever he is now should hold. Perhaps if the world was ready, a title I should hold. But I quickly shake those impure thoughts away and hold a smile on my face._

 _"His grace was most kind in letting me oversee such a minor detail." I try not to smirk as her smile turns to stone, for now, I know that Henry has told her of the words exchanged between us._

 _She tries her best to be cordial but her sense of hostility is not lost on me, "Yes, most kind indeed." I know this woman would go to hell and back for her son, in fact, she already has._

 _"Indeed, My Lady the King's Mother." Every time I speak her title, I wonder why she chose it for it is dreadful. Perhaps, it is just like My Lady the King's Mother, herself._

 _"And the fabric for the dress?" She questions me, and as I go to answer her I am cut off, "Perhaps red for Lancaster?" I inwardly wince at having to wear whore's red on my wedding day giving more credence to the rumors about Uncle Richard planned to take me as his wife. "Tudor green would suit you."_

 _"In January?" I raise a brow to her, this woman truly had no taste._

 _She chuckles, "Of course, always vain about your appearance like your mother before you."_

 _I stand firm, I know my mother and her had their differences but she does not have to rope me into their decade's long squabble. "I only think of making his grace look grander." I bite back knowing that though Henry is attractive he does not have the magnitude of a born King._

 _"Yes, you are lucky in looks like your mother and father. Henry and you shall make beautiful grandchildren." She nods curtly._

 _"That is very kind of you to say, I thank you for such splendid words." My words are clipped for she is wearing on patience._

 _"So what fabric will you chose?" She asks all the more interest in me after our little triste._

 _"Gold." My smile is wider than her eyes._

 _"Gold?" She says like I have mentioned the plague to her and not something as simple as fabric._

 _"Yes my father, King Edward," I emphasize my father's name, perhaps a little too much, "always did tell me that I was the white rose of the House of York. And that on my wedding day, I should be wrapped in the finest gold silks."_

 _"Indeed, you shall be radiant against the freshly fallen snow."_

My Lady the King's mother thinks to show me off to the Abbey as a golden statue. That she will show to the whole of England that I am merely what her son has won. _The spoils of war._ But, I was to shine like the golden Princess of York, I was raised to be.

I am taking my daily stroll in the garden, my coat wrapped tightly around my lithe frame keeping the biting winds at bay.

"My Lady!" I turn to see a squire whose tunic is embedded with the symbol of the welsh dragon.

"Yes?" I ask as I sum up his form, he must not be more than fifteen summers.

He starts to stutter, "Ttth-e Kk-ing reeeq-uests your presence alone in his chammmbbbeeer."

I laugh jovially, "Without chaperone?"

"Yyy-e-e-s." He can barely manage to get the word out making me smile wider.

"Tell his grace that I have no intention of meeting with men unattended."

His deep blue eyes are as wide as saucers, and he does not answer. I sight, "Go now, before they send a search party."

He scuttles away like a bewildered puppy, murmuring to himself how unpleased the King would be.

I finish my walk and make my way back to my chambers and sit down to let down the hems of some of my gowns, I was tall like my mother. Something I was happy of, I might not have her golden hair but at least I have her height and beauty.

After I finish letting the hems out my gowns, I wash in a tub of lilac water and put on a new clean shift and climb into bed with my embroidery. I am lost in my sewing when I hear the commotion outside my chamber door, I smile knowing that the King has played right into my hand's by coming to me himself.

"You can not go in there! It is not fitting!" I hear my Lady-in- waiting Nan say as if words could stop a King.

"She will see me." His voice is harsh and hardens as he goes on, "Well go fetch her!" and it serves to make me giggle.

Nan enters the chambers were I sleep, her hazel eyes filled with fear. "The King wishes to see you."

I toss a piece of red-gold hair over my snow white shoulder, as I like my shift to be completely off my shoulders. "Tell the King, that I am asleep and that he shall see me when I break my fast tomorrow, along with everyone else."

"Are you sure my lady?" Nan's eyes are wide at my blatant disrespect.

"Of course, never question my decisions, Nan." She turns to leave, " Oh, and Nan say everything as I have exactly said to you Nan, we cannot have the King think I am being disrespectful."

"Of course, my lady." She nods before going to face an enraged King.

I can hear my words coming out of Nan's mouth, and then there is quietness. _It is always quite before the storm._ He is like a summer storm pounding on the glass windows of Westminster, as he rips open the door to my chamber with such a ferocity I think he has taken it off its hinges.

"I see it could not wait then?" I lay on my pillows my embroidery still in my hands.

His brown eyes are on fire, "I shall speak with you!"

"Is that not what we are doing at this very moment?" I continue to focus on the green thread of the stem of the rose.

He slams the door, "Your York wit."

"Some find it quite amusing." I counter back not even looking up.

"Did your York uncle find it amusing?"

Those words said with such scorn cause me to spring up from the bed, like a knight ready to defend his maid's honor. "How dare you!"

He chuckles, _much like his mother almost too much._ "You overstep your boundaries, my lady! You have slept with the Usurper and now seek to worm my way into another King's bed!"

My hands cover my chest as my hair falls in my face, _I feel so small, so meaningless in that moment._ I look up at him, my river blue eyes are set on his dark brown eyes. "My brother, Thomas Grey wrote to me when he learned we were betrothed." I laugh as I hold steady to the bed post, "He would tell me how kind you were when faced with fear you showed only courage, that you would love me as I was meant to be loved."

"Perhaps, he knew that I would have loved you, but you made sure I could never fully love you when you broke your promise." His words burn me like the dragon on his squire's tunic like it has come to life and his burning me with its fire.

But I will not yield to anyone, "I was true to you, unlike you were to _me."_ I turn the tables on him. "Did you honestly think Thomas would forsake his own sister over a bond made in exile?" I fight on, with a hardened resolve, "He told me of how you found yourself in love with a Brittany country girl, how you promised her you would crown her Queen of England when reclaimed your throne."

His eyes go wide, and he is frozen in his stance, _in his anger_ "She is none of your concern!"

I smirk finding my inner strength at the sign of his weakness, I walk up to him swaying like the water goddess Melusina, whom mother swears we are descended from. _Perhaps it is her energy I am channeling. Her power._ "Tell me, could she even spell England?" I look up again, "Or did you teach her? I heard you bedded her _many times,_ so many that she birthed you a child. A bastard to sit on a stolen throne, how poetic."

I turn away as she grabs me forcing me to spin around to face him, "Protecting the throne your lover lost?"

My eyes are wide and my hand is the air before I can even stop it, the slap echoed against the stone walls. "I am no whore. I waited for you, like a good little maid. I waited. Now, I wish to God that I had not!" My temper gets the better of me, the temper inherited from my father, "I am no whore. But I do hope that in time you might then feel this shame I feel, brought on by you." _I am innocent you are the pretender to everything._

He does not even flinch at my actions, but his eyes give it away _I have enraged him._ "We shall see."

"And you shall look like a fool for sullying my name, trying to ride yourself of this marriage." I bite back at him. "We both know you are need of this marriage more than I, without me your backside would not be safe on the throne!"

He leaves and I crumple to the ground completely in tears. I am like that until dawn breaks a mess of sobs on the cold stone ground. _So much for elegance and refinement._

"She has been like this since the King left her." Nan says to someone and I am lost in my own sobs.

"I see, I have just come from his chambers let me speak with her."

Nan agrees and My Lady the King's Mother comes into my room, I do not look up. I do not even stir from my position on the floor. But she gets on her knees and she starts to soothe me by running her fingers through my hair. She grabs me by the waist and my head is practically in her lap, and we stay like this for a while as she continues to run her long fingers through my auburn waves.

"He did not mean to be so abrasive with you, child."

I do not respond I am just silent my blue eyes wide, red and puffy from my night of crying and my cheeks are tear stained. My shift is soaked as well, I must look a fright. _I feel a fright._

"He regrets his words."

This causes me to speak, "He does?" I croak out and she shifts to reach for the water on my night stand. I take the cup from her and drain the remnants.

"Yes, he was told horrendous lies, that seemed so real to him."

"Did you believe such lies?" I counter back as I place my head back on her lap and she goes back to running her fingers through my hair.

She takes a while to speak, "I did, and I will be punished by God for doing so, as will Henry."

"Why does God allow for such cruelty?" My voice comes out like a weak-willed child, _my mother would be ashamed_. But, I can not find it in me to care.

"He must know that those he chooses can bear the burden of the greatest destiny." She is steely in her resolve. _After all, God put her son on the throne._

"You think I have a great destiny?" I look into her eyes, they are brown like her sons. But I do not see the disdain in them but rather _affection._

She places her hands on either side of my cheeks, "I knew from the moment I saw you as a girl commanding your father's court from his throne, that _you were to be the peace."_

"Be the peace." I repeat her words, _my father's words._

I know now, that I must become the peace not for my family, not for myself, not for Henry and his mother but for England. _It was all for England and the greater glory of God._


End file.
